Except my point was that I have worked in third party efforts, probably more than most of those from the US who complain about the Democrats, but have probably never worked a precinct or manned a phone bank for the Greens or other third party. I actually would take all the accusations of being a Democratic hack more seriously, if I didn't know that I had spent more time campaigning for third party candidates than almost all the accusers on this list.
It's precisely because a large portion of third party advocates like it in theory, but do nothing to advance it that makes me so pissed off that they denigrate the hard work of those working to elect the best progressive candidates they can, even if they happen to be Democrats. I have the general activist bias that if you aren't doing organizing yourself, don't piss on other peoples work. If you want to prove your point, organize, demonstrate a successful model and then pursuade others to emulate it.
The problem is that almost all the third party campaigns in the US have been abysmal failures that have left successive waves of activists skeptical that it is a useful approach. There are no useful models, so most organizers are unpursuaded to do it themselves.
The Canada example is a good illustration of exactly why US leftists continue to be mesmerized by the lure of third party politics, yet I think miss the point. What most illustrates the difference between the US and Canada is that in 1947, the Taft-Hartley Act criminalized most union weapons in the US and made union elections much harder. Canada retained card-check recognition and while the US union numbers began their slow plunge to their present pathetic level, Canada's unionization rate continued to rise.
Given that union power, grassroots forces were able to push through more reforms than in the US. Whether the label was CCF, New Democratic, or had it been Liberal, the key issue is non-electoral power, not the party name or other electoral gimmicks. Union and other forces had power, so they could push through reforms. The electoral vehicle is pretty much besides the point.
As to the question- Why Canadian unions went third party from the Liberals, that probably has to do with party rules there. Information question, do parties in Canada have control of who the candidate is in each district or is each district free to choose their candidate on the party list? I was under the impression that parties had strong power to pick the candidate lists (as they do in England), so dissident party members have no option but third party since they can't run candidates in specific districts against the party's wishes. In the US, local activists and unions have almost always had the power to take over party selection if they had the voting power to do so in a particular district, whatever the national party might desire. This allowed unions in the US to fund and control the selection of Democratic party candidates in districts where they were strong, making a third party label unnecessary. The problem was that the unions are not strong enough in enough districts to wield as much power proportionately as Canadaian unions were able to.
-- Nathan Newman